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Effingham Fish
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Einhander: released in the United States in 1998 for the PlayStation video game console, made by RPG-giant Square. The game involves a war between the megalopoli of the Moon and what nations of the Earth remain after the Great War half a century ago over the "Holy Land", Gesetz. You, the player, pilot one of the Moon's latest developments: an extremely lethal, one-man fighter nicknamed by Earth's predominately German-speaking forces "Einhander", or "One-hander / One-handed", for it's single manipulator arm, used to grasp gunpods (weapon powerups), numbering 12 in all, from disabled or destroyed enemy vessels, all of which, and the Einhander, itself, of course, are all rendered perfectly using 3-D polygons. The backgrounds are so striking as to almost reverse the "back" in their names, the first level alone featuring a laughing, eerie futuristic billboard advertisement for gas masks and the understated but impressive ruins of the old city punctuated by the exclamation point of an unexploded atomic missile. The gameplay is as with any other shooter -- shoot everything that moves, shoot whatever doesn't move just to be sure, and try not to get hit -- but is spiced by Special Bonuses that reward extra points, rare gunpods, and/or open up secret areas (the aforementioned old city being but one of them), a score multiplier that is increased by destroying multiple enemies in a short time, or in one shot, if you can manage that, and a difficulty level that, even on Easy, borders on the insane; I'm no master at these games, but that I have yet to penetrate the opening scenes of Stage 4 is unusual. It's nonetheless ruthlessly entertaining and addictive; I've rented it numerous times (the copy on my floor even now is several days overdue), but opportunity and means have never intersected at the right time to allow me to buy my own copy, yet.
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011211
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